Sapiens : A Brief History of Humankind

Harari, Yuval Noah

ISBN 10: 0099590085 / ISBN 13: 9780099590088

Published by Penguin Random House, 2015

About this Item

Pages intact with possible writing/highlighting. Binding strong with minor wear. Dust jackets/supplements may not be included. Stock photo provided. Product includes identifying sticker. Better World Books: Buy Books. Do Good.

Seller Inventory # 11452765-6

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Sapiens : A Brief History of Humankind
• Publisher: Penguin Random House
• Publication Date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0099590085
• ISBN 13: 9780099590088
• Binding: Soft cover
• Edition: 1st Edition.
• Condition: Very Good
• Weight: 1.071 pounds

About this title

Synopsis

How did our species succeed in the battle for dominance Why did our foraging ancestors come together to create cities and kingdoms How did we come to believe in gods nations and human rights to trust money books and laws and to be enslaved by bureaucracy timetables and consumerism And what will our world be like in the millennia to come

Review

An Amazon Best Book of the Month for February 2015: Yuval Noah Harari has some questions. Among the biggest: How did Homo sapiens (or Homo sapiens sapiens , if you’re feeling especially wise today) evolve from an unexceptional savannah-dwelling primate to become the dominant force on the planet, emerging as the lone survivor out of six distinct, competing hominid species? He also has some answers, and they’re not what you’d expect. Tackling evolutionary concepts from a historian’s perspective, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, describes human development through a framework of three not-necessarily-orthodox “Revolutions”: the Cognitive, the Agricultural, and the Scientific. His ideas are interesting and often amusing: Why have humans managed to build astonishingly large populations when other primate groups top out at 150 individuals? Because our talent for gossip allows us to build networks in societies too large for personal relationships between everyone, and our universally accepted “imagined realities”--such as money, religion, and Limited Liability Corporations—keep us in line. Who cultivated whom, humans or wheat?. Wheat. Though the concepts are unusual and sometimes heavy (as is the book, literally) Harari’s deft prose and wry, subversive humor make quick work of material prone to academic tedium. He’s written a book of popular nonfiction (it was a bestseller overseas, no doubt in part because his conclusions draw controversy) landing somewhere in the middle of a Venn diagram of genetics, sociology, and history. Throughout, Harari returns frequently to another question: Does all this progress make us happier, our lives easier? The answer might disappoint you. --Jon Foro